(Francois du Toit)Brilliant concerto performance highlight of KZNPO concert. (Review by Michael Green)
A brilliant concerto performance by a South African pianist was the highlight of the last concert in the winter season of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra, in the Durban City Hall.
The composition was the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor by Saint-Saëns, and the pianist was Francois du Toit. A professor at the University of Cape Town, he has been a familiar figure on the concert stage for many years.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) wrote five piano concertos and this one is the best known of them all. Almost unbelievably, it was composed in 17 days in 1868. For the pianist it is an enormously challenging work, from the Bach-like opening to the frenzied finale. For the listener it is a constant delight from start to finish.
Francois du Toit gave an exciting performance, displaying a high technical skill (with a minimum of fuss) and a keen insight into the music’s poetry, grace and humour.
The orchestra, under the guidance of the visiting American conductor Daniel Boico, was an admirable partner in this resounding performance, which at the end brought forth prolonged applause and shouts of Bravo.
The concert opened with Saint-Saëns’s well known Danse macabre, a wonderfully effective orchestral picture of Halloween, with skeletons dancing to sinister music (a word of praise here for Joanna Frankel, guest concert master, who played the important part for solo violin).
The concert and the season ended with a rarity: the Symphony in C by Paul Dukas (1865-1935), composer of the celebrated Sorcerer’s Apprentice. It is a melodious, well-constructed and agreeable work, but I think that most of the audience found it interesting rather than memorable.
The orchestra’s eight-concert spring season runs from September 13 to November 1. The programmes seem, on the whole, more conventional than those we have had in recent weeks. Presumably, those in charge feel that the orchestra has a duty to instruct as well as entertain, but when a programme keeps the customers away, as has obviously happened once or twice in the recent season, it is time to re-assess the situation. - Michael Green
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